


Into the Woods

by Gammarad



Category: Original Work
Genre: Character Turned Into Vampire, Dubiously Consensual Blood-Drinking, Movie Production, Multi, Temporary Character Death, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-22
Updated: 2021-01-22
Packaged: 2021-03-13 17:54:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28907394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gammarad/pseuds/Gammarad
Summary: Filming a vampire movie on location, a stuntman follows one of the cast who wanders into the woods.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 6
Collections: Bulletproof 20/21





	Into the Woods

**Author's Note:**

  * For [roguefaerie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/roguefaerie/gifts).



_Hey, Dag._

The words slid into the young man's awareness. The second unit director, a tense woman with visible gray at her temples, was addressing him. 

_Yeah, what'ya need?_

_Where's Lis?_

He looked where he'd last seen the costar's stunt double. Lis had been standing there for most of an hour while the lighting techs and dressers did their work. 

_Don't know._

_Go find her._

Yeah. Lis was one of the folk he had to track on this job. Bathroom break, likely. He walked in the direction of the portable toilet that'd been reserved for women crew use. Weren't many of them, women crew. Director, Lis, makeup two, continuity. They just had one porta-potty.

Lis wasn't there. The man saw tracks in the brush around the plastic walls. Following them, he ran into the head electrician. 

_You seen Lis?_

_Few minutes back, heading that way._

The electrician waved his hand toward the edges of the land the crew was permitted. Following the tracks going that direction, Lis's tracks, the young man crossed the boundary.

He did not know, not then, about the boundary. He should have. The crew was briefed. But he had been distracted, watching the costar flirt with the director, with the star, with a character actor. 

Once he had crossed over, he was watched. 

It is true he was watched before, but illicitly. Now he, like Lis before him, was fair prey.

The vampire had not had such fortune in many days. She had taken what she needed from Lis already, and now, a gift unneeded but certainly wanted came following after.

Dag, he had been called, and it was not his name, nor was the name he went by with this film crew the name he'd been born under. He had lied his way into the union and his first job, and held it by knowledge that let him feign experience. 

The man whose name was not Dag followed Lis's path through the woods. This part of North Carolina had been forest for thousands of years. The trail was easy to follow at first. As the sun began to set, he still tracked her, though the trail grew fainter by the stride. 

He came to a clearing, one that had been used as a campsite before. A fire circle in its center, a ring of stone, testified to that, as did the sound of water just the right distance away. There was no fire. 

Having tracked Lis here, but not found her, he began to look around the edges of the campsite for where she had gone next. He was a better tracker than any member of a film crew had any right to be. He spotted the direction she'd gone by a recently broken twig, and took a step over the root of a dead tree. 

He knew he'd found Lis when he heard her voice. His heart beat faster when he heard. Lis's voice was unsteady, shaken, as though she was still recovering from some overwhelming experience. As she was.

_Give me a minute. Some privacy?_

_All right. What'ya doing all the way out here?_

She didn't answer. He squatted next to the fire circle, touched a fingertip to the blackened surface of the nearest stone. Hadn't been used in some time. 

There were sticks fallen all around that dead tree, and it was getting colder. He collected what he'd need to build a fire. He had time to notch the larger wood with his pocket knife and pile twigs between before Lis came to his side.

She looked a question at the results of his efforts.

_We're four hours' walk from the set and it's dark._

_Didn't ask you to follow me._

He pulled a lighter from his pocket and lit the shavings he'd carved out of the notches. They went up fast, catching on some of the twigs. Curious blue flames began exploring up the sides of the tented firewood.

_Was asked after you._

_Who'll they ask after you, then?_

He didn't answer that question. Hadn't needed a fire, but had built one perfectly. From between the trees, firelight reflected from the eyes of the one watching them. She'd brought Lis out to feed her, and Lis had fed her. Now, though, she saw the fire reflected in his eyes, the man's eyes, saw sparks float up into darkness. 

His eyes were full of sparks in the darkness.

Mine, the vampire thought, not like she did with prey, not like she had with Lis, a more all-encompassing possession. Chasing that thought, a more wary one. Not to rush, but to test. 

One part of the vampire knew, one did not trust that knowing and had to make sure. So she let the two go, and they made it safely back to the production tents before midnight.

The next afternoon, the vampire called to Lis, blood to blood. 

After their disappearance, both of them, Dag and Lis, were suspect, and the day's schedule rearranged so neither had stunts to do. They ate toast and drank coffee in the diner tent, the assistant producer's assistant watching them eat. A caterer in a wig stood in for the costar during lighting and set dress. 

Lis crammed the toast square into her mouth, gulped the hot coffee, pushed away from the table. 

_Done already?_

_Need to take a leak._

The assistant turned the page of the script he'd been pretending to read. Lis left the tent, and he didn't follow her. 

_She might wander off again._

_You plan to follow? Again?_

The young man shrugged, and did follow her, again, planned or not. He stayed far enough behind that she might not have noticed, not so far that she couldn't have seen if she looked.

Once out of sight of the rest of the crew, they came the same way they had before, right to the same campsite, the same fire circle. Lis sat down when they arrived. The man stayed standing. 

_Why're we here?_

_She called me._

He started to ask, started to say who-- and the answer put her arm over his shoulder. She was small, the vampire, a full grown adult but a short, slight one, so with her arm over his shoulder, her feet did not touch the ground. She was far older than either Lis or the man, but far younger than the forest around them.

_Who have you brought, Lis?_

_This's Dagwood Serp. Dag, this is Melya._

Though there was no fire this night, his eyes still held sparks. The vampire caressed the arm of Lis, stroked the cheek of the man. The test was passed, the indecision gone. 

_This is my place. Everything here is mine. I let you go, and you chose to return._

_You called us._

The vampire moved her head forward, yes, and sharply to the side, no. Yes, she had called Lis. No, she had not called the man. He had made his choice.

She was behind him, pressing her mouth to his neck, feet off the ground. She was light. Her fangs sunk into his skin, like steel needles through velvet creating a wonder from beautiful cloth. Threads of his blood ran from her mouth, down his neck into the collar of his shirt, staining it red.

He shivered into the flood of ecstasy where her prey went, but not as helpless in it as Lis had been. He didn't go limp in her grasp. He fought the overwhelming current, trying to swim, managing only not to drown in it. His mouth opened, wide, wordless. 

She drank until he had gone pale and weak, then turned him to face her. Their blood mingled and filled her mouth. She kissed it into his. He gasped, choked, tried to pull away, but she held him fast, light and strong, as he would soon be light and strong. 

He would soon be as she was. 

And then, so swiftly, he was. He fell. She called Lis, again, soothing the fear, taking the worry away. They watched over the man's still form together as the moon rose to its zenith and began to fall again into the trees. 

He shook, gasped, shuddered all over and sat up. His eyes flew wide. Fangs in his mouth that had not been there before, longer and sharper. She pressed Lis into his arms. He stared at the pulse beating in her neck, in her wrist. She saw the moment that he lost the battle against his hunger. He bit down on Lis's wrist and drank.

_Stop, now, my child. Stop._

_Why? I'm so hungry._

His words were muffled and rough. He did obey, reluctant, then ashamed. Lis was almost as pale as he had been before she kissed him. 

_I don't understand. Why choose me, and not her?_

_The choice was not between the two of you._

Later, he and Lis returned to the movie set. Later, he resigned that job. Later, he found Melya again, and told her his real name. Later, she told him how long it had been that she had not seen anyone to be what he was, not for a hundred years. 

_I knew it would be you, and I tested you. No one else could have followed the trail I left. No one else would have tried. No one else would have lit a fire and watched the sparks fly._

_I don't deserve it._

She knew he meant those words of protest in two divergent ways. And he was wrong, in both of them. Later, he would learn.


End file.
